Conventions and Stuff
As I mentioned before the break, Ska Studios will be exhibiting at PAX East! This time we aren’t entirely alone, as we’re grouping up with other indie developers to form a Mega Indie Booth! More details to be revealed in the coming months.

James and I will also be making our way to San Francisco for a visit to GDC. This time, James has a panel all to himself titled DIY XBLA FTW: The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile Postmortem. If you’re lucky enough to be a GDC attendant, you’ll definitely want to make your way to this presentation.

Link Roundup
It’s also been a while since we linked to others talking about us on the internet so it’s time I had a mini link roundup.

• Sunday Sidebar: Meet Ska Studios – A dialog style interview with us!
• James Silva will destroy anyone who gets in his way – A discussion more oriented around the aesthetics of violence rather than the usual “will it destroy our children’s minds” angle.
• Last PAX Prime, James and I were asked to contribute to a sketch book. But not just any sketch book: a sketch book for charity! We said “sure!” and here was the result. We’re under “Indie Bundle 2″. Although only James was credited (AHEM), I contributed the top sketches while James drew the “Funleashed” doodle. Heck, even my name is signed on there. Grumble, rant, grumble. It is for charity so I suppose I can forgive.
• Review: Z0MB1ES (on teh ph0ne) – Yay, Z0MB1ES!
• Top 5 Xbox Live Arcade Games You Didn’t Play in 2011 – If you didn’t play Vampire Smile, you certainly should now!
• And for a little self indulgence, I’m linking to thisTop 10 Geeky Marriage Proposals . Somehow James and I only made number 9. OK, those other ones are pretty cool but James MADE his proposal! Grumble, rant, grumble. Making it yourself is always number one awesome in my book but I guess that’s why I’m marrying James and not those other 9 dudes. He’ll always be number one to me. < /sappy >
• To finish off this not-so-mini-anymore list: If you are of the proper age and have enjoyed playing, and more often dying, in Z0MB1ES, you may enjoy this drinking game.

Fandom
In addition to the Art Unicorner and our Facebook Fan Art Album, I also have a little Ska Studios Deviantart Group put together. Feel free to join, submit pictures and start a dialog with fellow fans.

MTV.com:

“The guy that made this game is nuts.”

Wired.com:

As the sole creator of the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade game Dishwasher, Silva found himself the poster boy of Microsoft’s efforts to “democratize game development” at the Game Developers Conference. The Utica, NY independent gamemaker shared the stage with game design luminaries like Tomonobu Itagaki and Peter Molyneux at Microsoft’s GDC keynote.

LA Times:

The 26-year-old from Utica, N.Y., paid his way through college by scrubbing dishes at a diner. That job might help him become the Quentin Tarantino of video games: He used it as inspiration for “The Dishwasher,” in which the title character becomes a ninja and slashes his way out of a kitchen overrun by villains.

Ars Technica:

“James has quit his job… it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” James Silva quickly became one of the stars of the GDC this year, and the video Microsoft created to highlight his game and one-man-team ethic showed that it knows how cool James Silva is. Microsoft desperately wants a piece of that cool. 

For the record, Microsoft never quite came across as desperately wanting a piece of my cool, but I thought that quote was too good to leave out.  The XNA team are just about the coolest bunch of geeks I’ve ever met; it was awesome meeting up with them for classy San Francisco dining–I got to meet the team behind the tech that the Dishwasher is based on and they got to meet the guy behind the game that shows off their tech.  There was a lot of mutual gushing.

Also, a trial of The Dishwasher is available to everyone on XBLA for a very short time, here are instructions on downloading it.

I got to step on stage for a minute or so during the keynote and play some Dishwasher.  Joystiq loves me, they really do.

Gamespot got to play the game at the demo kioks.  They did a hands-on, with nice bits like:

The terrific visual design is replete with muddy blacks and rusty reds, and we especially loved the splashes of blood that splattered against the screen and trickled down. Ska Software has delivered a demo with remarkable potential, and we look forward to getting our hands on the complete product.

A trial of The Dishwasher is available on XBL for a very limited time.  Also, this crazy video they made about me should be on XBL somewhere.

This has been an awesome week–so far I’ve met a bunch of Bungie guys, Cliffy B and his lancer (he does impressions), Itagaki-san (major Dishwasher influence right there) and Peter Molyneux, who gave me lots of interesting advice.  It’s a bit surreal to get attention from a total industry icon.

I’ve also been chillaxing with the XNA team a bit, which has been a kind of neat experience all around: I’ve been working with the XNA framework–their baby–for over a year now, and they’ve been watching XNA being promoted by The Dishwasher–my baby–for about the same amount of time.

More updates to come!